Minnesota

Оглавление

Folwell William Watts. Minnesota

CHAPTER I. THE FRENCH PERIOD

CHAPTER II. THE ENGLISH DOMINION

CHAPTER III. MINNESOTA WEST ANNEXED

CHAPTER IV. FORT SNELLING ESTABLISHED

CHAPTER V. EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS

CHAPTER VI. THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED

CHAPTER VII. TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER VIII. TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD

CHAPTER IX. THE STRUGGLE FOR RAILROADS

CHAPTER X. ARMING FOR THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER XI. THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX

CHAPTER XII. THE SIOUX WAR

CHAPTER XIII. SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR

CHAPTER XIV. HONORS OF WAR

CHAPTER XV. REVIVAL

CHAPTER XVI. STORM AND STRESS

CHAPTER XVII. CLEARING UP

CHAPTER XVIII. FAIR WEATHER

CHAPTER XIX. A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS

Отрывок из книги

The word Minnesota was the Dakota name for that considerable tributary of the Mississippi which, issuing from Big Stone Lake, flows southeastward to Mankato, turns there at a right angle, and runs on to Fort Snelling, where it empties into the great river. It is a compound of “mini,” water, and “sota,” gray-blue or sky-colored. The name was given to the territory as established by act of Congress of March 3, 1849, and was retained by the state with her diminished area.

If one should travel in the extension of the jog in the north boundary, west of the Lake of the Woods, due south, he could hardly miss Lake Itasca. If then he should embark and follow the great river to the Iowa line, his course would have divided the state into two portions, not very unequal in extent. The political history of the two parts is sufficiently diverse to warrant a distinction between Minnesota East and Minnesota West. England never owned west of the river, Spain gained no foothold east of it. France, owning on both sides, yielded Minnesota East to England in 1763, and sold Minnesota West to the United States in 1803. Up to the former date, the whole area was part of New France and had no separate history.

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Four years later Father Jacques Marquette succeeded Allouez in that mission. He also heard stories of a great river flowing to a sea, on which canoes with wings might be seen. The Jesuit Relation of 1670-71 gives reports from Indians of a great river which “for more than three hundred leagues from its mouth is wider than the St. Lawrence at Quebec;” and people dwelling near its mouth “have houses on the water and cut down trees with large knives.” In the summer of 1669, Louis Joliet, whom Talon had sent to Lake Superior to search for copper, returned; and it was then, probably on his suggestion, that Talon resolved that it was time for the French to plant a military station at the Sault Sainte Marie, a point of notable strategic importance. He determined also to make an impression of French power on the Indians of the West. In the following year he dispatched Nicholas Perrot, of whom we are to hear later, to summon the Pottawattamies, the Winnebagoes, and other accessible nations to a grand convocation at the Sault Sainte Marie in the spring of 1671. To represent the government, Simon François Daumont, Sieur de St. Lusson, was commissioned and took his journey in October, 1670.

On the 14th of June, 1671, the appointed day, the council was held. Fourteen Indian nations were represented. Among the French present were Joliet, Father Allouez, and Perrot. The central act was the proclamation by St. Lusson of King Louis’s dominion over “lakes Huron and Superior, … all countries, rivers, lakes and streams, contiguous and adjacent thereto, with those that have been discovered, and those which may be discovered hereafter, … bounded by the seas of the north, west, and south.” This modest claim covered perhaps nine tenths of North America. As usual, a big wooden cross was erected and blest. A metallic plate bearing the king’s arms was nailed up, and a “procès-verbal” drawn and signed. In that day such a proclamation gave title to barbarian lands until annulled in battle by land or sea. Father Allouez made a speech, which has been preserved, describing the power and glory of the French king in extravagant terms.

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